COLUMBUS, Ohio -- At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court-martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq.

The soldiers say they needed the vehicles, and parts stripped from one, to deliver fuel to Iraq, but their former battalion commander said Sunday the troops should at least have returned the vehicles to their original units.

Members of the 656th Transportation Company said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel that was needed by U.S. forces in Iraq for everything from helicopters to tanks.

The reservists took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units that had already moved into Iraq, one of the reservists, Darrell Birt of Columbus, told the Associated Press on Sunday.

Birt, a former chief warrant officer, and the others were charged with theft, destruction of Army property and conspiracy to cover up their crimes. Birt said he and two others pleaded guilty and the other three were convicted. All received six-month sentences.

"Nobody ever reported these trucks stolen. The deal was, when you are moving, if it was going to take more than 30 minutes to fix it, you left it," said Birt, who was released in November. "I'm a Christian man and I can't ignore what we did, but it was justified to get us in the fight and to sustain the fight."

Last week, the military said it would not court-martial any of 23 other Army reservists who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq, complaining that their vehicles were in poor condition and did not have armor. And on Wednesday, U.S. soldiers complained to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in Kuwait that they have to scrounge in landfills for scrap metal and discarded bullet-resistant glass to provide armor for their vehicles.

The reservists had to move their equipment along with the fuel and likely did not have enough vehicles to do so in one trip, their former battalion commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Wicker, said.

"That would have required multiple trips back. They do not have many cargo trucks. They are fuel haulers," he told the Associated Press.

But once the reservists were done with the assignment, they should have sought out the units the vehicles belonged to, he said.

"Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases," Wicker said. "They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units."

Wicker ordered the investigation of the thefts, which occurred before he assumed the battalion post.

"Taking the trucks in my mind was not the worst thing they did," Wicker said from Fort Hood, Texas, where he is now with the Army's 13th Corps Support Command.

The 656th's former company commander, Maj. Cathy Kaus, told the Chicago Tribune in Sunday's editions that although she knew the equipment had been stolen, she could not determine its owners. The Tribune said the vehicles were never reported stolen, according to court-martial transcripts.

Kaus is serving a six-month sentence. She and Birt have applied for clemency, which could restore their military benefits and change their dishonorable discharges.

Amen...Stealing is when you benefit yourself.. Appropriating is what you do for your mission...

The thin line is appropriating it from the right pogues...who are hoarding it....and not from those whose lives will be endangered by your actions...or from those who provide for others in matters of life and death..

Many REMFS like to hoard their supplies so they have extras for trading purposes or just because they feel its their job to keep them from getting out..the 'Silas Marner' type Supply Officer...

If you need it ...put a guard on it....should be one on it anyway...to keep the enemy out...after all we are at war and this was a war zone...

Not to mention the abandoned property rule....

These folks are being screwed by the Army...if they are thieves and sending stuff home or selling it on the black market and pocketing the profit...that is an entirely different matter throw the book at em....

But when they are in need and the brass wont get them what they need...while the brass sits on it's fat keister enjoying all the benefits of rear eschelon living.....and hoards supplies...

Then scroungers are heroes in my book...

When I was in RVN we 'scrounged' a whole truckload of medical supplies that were ordered to be destroyed so their CO would not have to go through the hassle of figuring out the exhaustive paperwork on transferring them a zillion times just to get them to a unit that needed them...

He would not even consider just saying they were destroyed...and then just sending them along...nope they had to be destroyed because the paper work was just too darn intensive..

So we did the right thing...in spite of the Army's manual...and an obstructionist CO

Got the stuff to the unit that needed it most....the medical unit that supported my infantry unit Our medics got what they needed to care care of combat causalities...(plus a refrigerator and a jeep :)

A court-martial for this is a joke. Not exactly a morale booster. This problem should have never gotten this far. Deal with at the lower levels. A minor dressing down, a promise not to do it again, and then all go out for a beer together.

My god, I might have been shot for all the scrounging i did. We stole armed forces police Jeeps in saigon, painted them, put numbers on them and had the only platoon with six Jeeps with the same numbers.

This is amazing. It is standard practice for units to "appropriate" equipment from other units. Usually, the supply sergeants worked out trades. I remember being "in the field" and walking a post around our unit's gear sheds in order to protect it from being stolen by other units in the field. And the other units did the same.

"A court-martial for this is a joke. Not exactly a morale booster. This problem should have never gotten this far. Deal with at the lower levels. A minor dressing down, a promise not to do it again, and then all go out for a beer together."

I agree, except for the "dressing down" part. It should NEVER have gotten this far. This kind of stuff was usually handled by the caught privates getting the crap beat out of them and sent back to their units. Court marshal?? Would never happen when I was in.

The "minor dressing down" is so that there is no official sanctioning of this kind of activity. Nothing negative in anyones record, and as long as the convening authority bought the beer later it would be a wash.

"Instead of taking the trucks back to their rightful owners, the first thing was erasing the identity marks and dumping them off at bases," Wicker said. "They destroyed it. They did the enemy's job. ... Those trucks could be used for other units."

Were the trucks destroyed or, worse yet, end up in enemy hands? I have no problem with them being taken. If you take 'em, use 'em or get them to someone else that will.

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